


And Every Single Heart

by mytimehaspassed



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 08:01:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12104283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed
Summary: Inside the darkness of the Nest, Riko lights a cigarette and asks him what he remembers of his childhood. Neil doesn’t say anything, can’t, because his tongue is swollen in his mouth, bitten down from hours of pain, his lips cracked and sore and split down the sides. He’s shivering, but only because Riko had stopped touching him with a promise to return and the anxiety rolls over him in waves, wracking him, his stomach, his chest, and it’s hard to breathe under all of this blood in his throat, but Riko offers him a drag across the expanse of Kevin’s bed and Neil takes it, their fingers touching, Riko’s warm where they slide over Neil’s, and Neil inhales and coughs and leaves a red stain on the cigarette like lipstick, but Riko doesn’t mind, places his mouth where Neil’s had been.





	And Every Single Heart

**I**

Inside the darkness of the Nest, Riko lights a cigarette and asks him what he remembers of his childhood. Neil doesn’t say anything, can’t, because his tongue is swollen in his mouth, bitten down from hours of pain, his lips cracked and sore and split down the sides. He’s shivering, but only because Riko had stopped touching him with a promise to return and the anxiety rolls over him in waves, wracking him, his stomach, his chest, and it’s hard to breathe under all of this blood in his throat, but Riko offers him a drag across the expanse of Kevin’s bed and Neil takes it, their fingers touching, Riko’s warm where they slide over Neil’s, and Neil inhales and coughs and leaves a red stain on the cigarette like lipstick, but Riko doesn’t mind, places his mouth where Neil’s had been. 

Riko says, “I remember your father,” and Neil turns away from him underneath the sheets, and he feels cold and hot at the same time, sickly, doesn’t want to have this conversation, especially doesn’t want to have it after Riko had slowly, slowly loosened his belt and unzipped his fly and Neil had closed his eyes, and it would have hurt, might have hurt, if not for the cuts and bruises and bite marks already on his body, the wounds that had flamed on his skin, that had ached. Riko had called him by a different name, his real name, his father’s name, and Neil didn’t protest only because it was easier to pretend like he was someone else for a little while, someone far away from here.

Riko touches the place where Neil’s neck meets his shoulder, his fingers light, soft, and Neil shivers. “I remember you, Nathanial.” 

And, “I remember who you were.”

And Riko’s hand is curling around Neil and Neil breathes in and out and in again and Riko says his name, but again it’s the wrong one, the worst one, and his teeth are against Neil’s cheekbone, scraping along his skin, and there’s blood in Neil’s mouth, and he swallows but the taste doesn’t go away, and Riko says something else, but Neil doesn’t quite catch it, and the sheets stick to him like glue, dried blood and come on his chest, his thighs, and Riko places the cigarette between Neil’s lips one more time and Neil inhales smoke that evaporates between his teeth.

Riko says, “You used to be someone, Nathanial.”

His nails are sharp on Neil’s scars, tearing and biting into them, and he plucks the cigarette from his lips and turns it around to burn the flesh above Neil’s heart, a small circle of pain, the ash staining his skin black where the blood doesn’t spread. Neil squirms beneath him, the cigarette crumbling between Riko’s fingers, and Riko says, “You used to be your father’s son.”

And it takes a moment, Neil looking up at Riko from beneath his lashes, watching his teeth and tongue form around the words, until he finally understands what he means, what he’s implying, and Neil lets his smile spread low and cruel, the skin splitting further, wide and wide and wider, and he starts to laugh, but no sound ever makes it out of his throat. 

***

Jean holds the racquet in the hand that’s not swollen, tries to shove Neil to his feet with the head, whispers furiously in French. 

It sounds like, “Get up, get up, get up,” but Neil only smiles up at him, laid out on the court floor, his teeth stained with blood so red it’s almost black. 

“Fuck you, frog.”

***

There’s a fourth year Raven that finds Neil in the showers early one morning, and the sound that leaves her mouth could be called a laugh, but Neil barely hears it where the water is sluicing over his head, ice cold, his arms wrapped around his bruised, shattered knees, his head down. It looks like he’s been crawling through broken glass, he’s not even sure how he’s managed to not die from blood loss, and the Raven crouches down by the front of the shower stall, careful not to touch the dirty, rust-stained water that’s pooling around him. 

Neil’s too tired to ask her to go away. 

She says, her voice unmistakably soft, “They break you yet?”

Neil looks up at her, and she must see some fight left in his eyes, because she smiles, one side of her mouth inching up her cheek. “They will,” she says, and slowly stands up, pushing her hair back from her eyes, already bored. “It’s only a matter of time.”

***

He’s losing time. It comes and goes from him in waves, great, big, black swaths of darkness, of memories that never stuck, and Neil asks Riko what day it is four, no five times in succession, and Riko places two fingers on the side of Neil’s temple and asks him if he needs to see a doctor. And Neil must say something awful, because Riko snarls at him and bites down on his lower lip, hard enough to break the skin, and Neil’s laughing, he is, but only because the few times he’s tried to cry, Riko had liked it. 

He says, “Did you hear the one about the doctor who walks into a bar?” 

And it sounds like he’s drunk, and Riko rolls his eyes and pushes away from him, leaves Kevin’s bed and the sickly, fever-warm thrush of Neil’s body, and pulls Jean’s black bag from underneath Jean's bed, the one he doesn’t think Riko knows about, the one that is filled with rows and rows of tiny orange prescription bottles. Riko pulls out two round pills and feeds them to Neil without water, Neil swallowing obediently around the pain of his mouth. 

“What a good boy,” Riko says, patting Neil’s cheek softly. His breath cascades across Neil’s face, his mouth shockingly close, and Neil’s lost another two, no three seconds. Riko’s mouth is on his, his tongue, making sure that Neil has actually swallowed. “Good dog.”

Neil says, “Hey,” and his throat is dry, his voice absolutely shattered. 

Neil says, “Hey."

He says, “Did you ever hear the one about the - ” and Riko presses their mouths together so hard that Neil sees stars. 

***

He dreams of nothing. 

Riko wakes him up every two or three hours, and Neil feels shaky, unmoored, doesn’t know what day it is, forgets how to say words, forgets the meaning of certain things; everything sounds wrong when it leaves his lips. He’s sure he’s been here for weeks, for months, forgets what the sun feels like on his skin, forgets that there’s anything beyond the Nest. 

Riko leads him in Raven drills for longer than everyone else, sometimes it’s just them on the court, sometimes Jean is there to pick up the pieces so he won’t be punished like Neil is punished, sometimes Riko tells Neil to stay, good dog, and practice until he gets something right, and Neil does, does because he is nothing if not a junkie, and sometimes Riko tapes his hands to the racquet so that it doesn’t fall, a humiliating gesture to remind him of where he is, of who he could be, of what it was like in little league, when his mother would bring him to practices and cheer him on from the sidelines, before he changed his name, before he ever even met Riko. 

Sometimes Jean will push him into the wall during practice and hold him there for longer than necessary, whispering words that are close to, but not quite threats. Neil has seen the new scars on his chest in the locker room, has seen the way he has been carrying himself lately. 

Riko would smile at Jean like he smiles at Neil and Neil would understand that Jean has been here for a long time, will be here for longer than Neil ever will. 

The other Ravens are just as ruthless as Riko is, sometimes more so because Riko’s not always watching. Neil is cornered in the cafeteria one evening after dinner, three Ravens whose names Neil had never even learned pushing him up against the wall, his cheek bruising on the cinderblock, their fists blunt where Riko’s had been sharp. His eye is swollen by bedtime, and Riko presses his fingers into the bruise and says, “You’ll never learn how to be a champion if you can’t even duck, Nathanial.” 

Neil says nothing, too tired to push him away. Riko had stopped using the handcuffs days ago; Neil had learned to bite down on the pillow to mask his screams. 

***

They take out his contacts, they dye his hair, they give him the tattoo. 

He laughs when Riko shows him what he looks like in the handheld mirror, says, “When’d my father get out of prison?”

Riko smiles cruelly, tells him that he’s never been attracted to self pity. 

He scrapes and bites and claws at Neil and Neil doesn’t cry because crying only makes it worse, and he breathes in through his nose when his mouth fills with blood, and Riko makes him say Andrew’s name when he fucks him, makes Neil scream it, and Neil does, his voice crawling out of his mouth like it hurts, and Riko tells him that he’s been such a good boy for his King, makes Neil scream that, too, Neil’s words still tumbling out even when he can’t hear them anymore. 

Riko says, “Say my name.” 

And Neil does. 

***

Riko tells him about Drake, about Proust. 

He’s explicit, doesn’t leave out any of the details, makes Neil beg for Andrew’s life, makes him beg for the life of the other Foxes. Neil knows that Riko doesn’t understand the need for friends, for family, but he understands what their loss would mean to Neil, so it’s breathtakingly easy to make Neil promise all sorts of things, anything Riko wants, his fingers framing Neil’s face as Jean opens one pill bottle after another, selects two or three or four and makes Neil swallow them like candy, his eyes never lifting from the floor. Riko doesn’t like Neil as much when he’s open and easy and pliant, but sometimes the resistance is tiring, and sometimes Jean asks Riko in just the right light, at just the right moment, never even glancing over at Neil, asks him for one quiet night before Neil leaves them, and sometimes even Riko agrees, shrugging as if to say why not. 

He kisses him and kisses him, enjoys it when Neil kisses him back, when Neil slides his ruined, scarred hands over Riko’s stomach, his chest, pulls him closer, can’t open his eyes, but can’t stop moving his mouth, either, slipping out of his clothes with no hesitation, pulling Riko onto Kevin’s bed, slipping underneath the sheets. 

Riko enjoys even this sometimes. 

***

Inside the darkness of the Nest, Neil lights a cigarette and asks him, “Why me?”

He voice is caught somewhere between a whisper and a scream; he doesn’t sound like the Neil Josten he created. 

Riko lets Neil take a long drag before he reaches over and plucks it from his mouth, placing his lips where Neil’s had been. He blows out a ring of smoke and says, “Because you’re mine.”

***

Neil doesn’t sign the contract. 

He’s not entirely sure what stops him. 

***

He blinks and he’s in the airport. 

He’s lost time again, he knows, and people are giving him a wide berth, and he’s not sure which city he’s in, and nobody looks him in the eye, like he’s some kind of busker looking for handouts or something, and he blinks again and he’s talking to Wymack on the phone, and then again and he’s in a car looking out the window on a lonely stretch of highway, and he wants to laugh because what would his mother say about him now that his survival instincts have gone to absolute shit?

Despite Wymack’s insistence, he doesn’t talk about it, doesn’t want to, can’t, not for a very long time. He sees the other Foxes and doesn’t bask in, but can’t quite escape from their concern. He revels in Kevin’s black eye, never once feels sorry. 

He avoids Andrew’s gaze.

Life goes on.

 

**II**

Kevin checks him into the wall at practice one afternoon, his eyes on Neil’s tattooed cheek. He hisses between clenched teeth, “That number is wasted on you,” and he says it in French, so none of the other Foxes can hear it. 

Neil looks over at Andrew, but Andrew’s not even looking at him. 

He says, in English, “I know.”

***

A half an hour is gone from one of his language classes, he’s not even sure which one. He blinks and finds himself in the middle of an exodus, the other students gathering their backpacks and books and shuffling along to their other classes. The last thing he remembers is verb conjugations and the lull of his professor’s voice as she was speaking to them from the whiteboard. She stares at him now as he remains seated, the only other person in the room. 

“Mr Josten?” she says. 

He says, “Sorry,” out of habit more than anything else, quickly shoving his textbook into his bag and walking out of the room, avoiding her eyes. He bumps into Matt in the hall, who slings an easy arm around Neil’s shoulders and smiles brightly, and Neil feels the anxiety in the pit of his stomach wither up and die. 

***

Allison sends him a text about meeting for coffee, so he does, sitting across from her in the cafe and listening to her talk about everything except what she wanted to meet with him for. He sips at the fancy drink she had bought him, despite his small protestation of price, and he listens to her and he doesn’t feel anything, and it’s kind of nice, actually, putting everything he’s been worrying about in a little box inside of him and placing it out of reach for awhile. She smiles, and he smiles back, and it quiets the unease that whispers through him when he’s alone for too long, the pain and shame and urge to run. 

The sunlight creeps through the windows, lighting up the brilliance of Allison’s hair, and Neil thinks of someone else for a moment, has to shake himself out of that train of thought, and, like she knows exactly what he’s thinking, Allison’s smile spreads across her face, as sharp as glass when she says, “So, can you settle a bet for me?”

And Neil chokes on a burning swallow of coffee and says, “No,” too fast. He watches as Allison’s smile grows wider, and he thinks his survival instincts really have left him for good if he’s this easy to read. 

“Thanks, kid,” she says, and laughs when Neil’s cheeks start to burn. 

***

He forgets that he’s not at the Nest. 

Despite the angry shout from Dan, Kevin slams into him from behind just as Neil is thrown the ball and Neil bites it, goes flying onto the court, his helmet hitting the ground pretty hard. He looks up and expects to see Riko, so he does for a moment, Riko standing over him with a knife in his hand, and Neil removes his helmet, propping himself up on his knees, his head lowered like the good dog he is, and there’s silence for a long, long time, and when Neil looks up again, it’s Kevin above him, his face horrified. 

Neil blinks and it’s like losing time, but not, he’s not quite sure what happened, where he is exactly, and he looks toward the goal automatically, and Andrew’s standing there stone still, and Neil can’t quite read the expression on his face, and Dan says Neil’s name from where she’s standing, and it’s this strangled sound, and Kevin inhales sharply above him, and Neil manages to bite out that he’s sorry, he’s so sorry, and everyone except Andrew and Aaron jogs over to him to ask if he’s okay, which he says he is - “I’m fine,” and there’s a collective noise of disgust, so he says it again, “No, really, I’m fine,” which nobody believes - and Neil stands up to take a breath and break through the smothering empathy of the group, and he wants to ask if they can keep playing, if they can all just keep playing, but when he turns toward the goal again, he finds it empty. 

He says, one last time, “I’m fine,” but even he doesn’t believe the words. 

***

On Wymack’s insistence, he agrees to meet with Betsy. He says, once he’s seated on her couch, staring at the shelves of crystal figurines and avoiding her nonjudgmental gaze, that he’s only doing this because of what happened during practice, and he doesn’t want it to ruin a game. 

“What happened?” Betsy asks. 

He looks at her blankly for a moment, and she clarifies, a small smile gracing her mouth, “In your own words, what happened?”

Neil shrugs. “I thought Kevin was someone else for a moment. It’s not a big deal.” 

“Who did you think he was?”

He looks at her, then looks away, his mouth a thin line. 

Betsy makes a small notation on her paper, and then tries a different tactic. “What did you feel when you saw this person?”

Neil sighed. “I let Kevin tackle me,” he says, and then, “I shouldn’t have.”

“So you were feeling remorseful?” Betsy prompts, but Neil doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move, looks at her as blankly as before. 

She places her paper on her desk and leans forward, her hands folding together, and asks, “Or were you feeling ready to be punished?”

Neil looks down at his hands, feels his fists clench, his knuckles white with strain. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You don’t have to,” Betsy says, smiling openly. “But I wish you would.”

Neil shakes his head slightly, and Betsy allows him to change the subject, allows him to talk to her about their upcoming season instead. He talks until the clock runs out, his face more expressive than she’s ever seen it before, his hands moving in time with his words. He almost looks happy, talking about the something he loves more than anything else, the something that makes him the junkie he is. 

He never once mentions the Nest, never once says Riko’s name. 

It doesn’t feel like a victory. 

***

When the bandages come off, people stare at him in the hallways. It’s little glances here and there, some of them not even bothering to politely look away when he catches them, and he feels like an animal on display. He lets Nicky take him out to the mall again for more clothes, buys loose-fitting sweaters with long sleeves and high collars, jeans that leave everything to the imagination, doesn’t care about the money, doesn’t even care about the clothes. 

After practice, he’s back to his old ways since the Nest, changing in stalls and showering last, waiting for everyone to leave before baring his skin. Andrew will wait for him sometimes when he’s feeling angry, when he wants someone to take it out on, will sit on the bench in the locker room and watch Neil try to hide his scars, but he doesn’t ever say anything, wouldn’t, mostly because he’s hiding his own secrets underneath the black armbands he wears, and Neil is one of the only people who knows it. 

Andrew glares at him and Neil glares back, and it’s like they’re in a standoff, at a standstill, until Kevin yells loudly from the other room to get the fuck moving, and they do, like the obedient, good little dogs they are. 

***

Neil lets Andrew set the parameters. 

He accepts the small, hungry kisses whenever Andrew decides to give them, he lets Andrew paw at him over, under, between his clothes, and he only places his hands on the soft spots that Andrew lets him, the back of his neck sometimes, in his hair, his arms curling around Andrew’s shoulders. 

They fool around between classes, back at the Tower, when no one is around. Andrew pins Neil against the door of his bedroom and sinks to his knees, and Neil grips the plaster of the wall so hard he leaves tiny, crescent moon indents, and Andrew laughs at them, laughs at Neil’s clawing, desperate need for release, and Neil smiles back and opens his mouth to ask if Andrew wants something, wants this, too, but doesn’t because Andrew’s face shutters and turns dark. He locks himself in the bathroom and Neil busies himself with changing his clothes and trying to cool the bright red burn of his face until he hears the sink turn on. 

It works because it almost doesn’t, because Andrew doesn’t want this to be anything more than what it is, and Neil is okay to let it happen. 

Neil says, “I’m fine,” when anyone asks, says it to Andrew, too, always say yes when Andrew asks, always will say yes. 

He is nothing if not alright. 

***

He is nothing if not a liar. 

***

He had said to Andrew that day in the lounge, “I’ve never understood why he liked knives.”

He had watched Andrew and Renee freeze, watched them communicate silently with each other, watched them slot puzzle pieces into place, acknowledging the lasting damage of Riko’s reign, the scars that Neil will carry with him wherever he goes. He had watched Andrew finger the armbands he wears like a shield, and Neil had sounded confused and frightened and small beside him. 

“I’ve never understood why he liked knives.”

His voice replaying itself over and over and over again inside his head, a small admission that could be slotted into the truth that Andrew and Renee already knew, filed away as fear, as trauma, as something Neil Josten would never be able to understand because - no matter how many times it’s happened, no matter how many scars he has - this was a life he was unaccustomed to, being tortured for fun, being cut open just so someone could watch him bleed. 

He had seen the looks of pity on his teammates’ faces and he had almost felt sorry for letting that one slip, for not telling them that Riko was an arrogant, spoiled child next to the Butcher of Baltimore, that Riko only played in the same field, that his father was the true artist. 

“I’ve never understood why he liked knives.”

And the funniest part is: he had lied then, too. 

***

He sees Andrew pull out the knives tucked against the soft skin of his wrist, and he thinks, of course he understands. 

He is nothing if not his father’s son, after all. 

***

Andrew places two cigarettes in his mouth and lights both of them before handing one off to Neil. Smoke still reminds him of Riko, of his mother, so he holds it for awhile without inhaling, lets the cherry burn down, the wind rattling noisily across the roof like a living thing, a sharp chill cutting through his clothes. Andrew doesn’t look at him, doesn’t touch him, and Neil doesn’t know how to change that. 

He wants to apologize, for getting to this place (for getting them to this place), for his decision to leave the safety of Palmetto for Evermore, but he’s afraid of the disgust on Andrew’s face, so he doesn’t say anything for a long, long time. Andrew inhales and exhales, and the smoke from his lips dissipates with the wind, and he stares out at the campus with a bored look on his face, and Neil wonders not for the first time if Neil is less than Andrew deserves. 

Neil’s phone chimes and when he looks it’s just a smiley face from Nicky, something that Neil doesn’t respond to. The Foxes send him texts sometimes when they think he needs encouragement or an opening or maybe just something to look forward to every day, and Neil shouldn’t be so surprised at their intuitive nature, but he’s never really been around people like this, people who know him as well as they do without actually knowing his past. 

Andrew looks at him now and raises one eyebrow, and Neil realizes that he’s been staring at his phone for what felt like a second, but what was probably closer to a minute. More lost time. 

He looks at Andrew and Andrew looks back, and it’s less of a glare, more of an inquisitive look, and Neil blurts out something he shouldn’t really ask before he can think better of it, “Did you ever lose time after…” he trails off, unsure. 

Andrew narrows his eyes, and he’s quick, he’s always been quick, he doesn’t even need to ask what Neil’s referring to. “What happened at Evermore?” His voice is deadly, a cobra poised to strike. 

“I just,” Neil says. “I just can’t remember things sometimes, I lose time, black out. Is that usually a symptom of - ” he can’t even say it, he won’t.

Andrew’s fist clenches on his thigh, the cigarette crushed between his fingers, useless. “Goddammit,” he says. “Goddammit, Neil.” He’s angry, like Neil thought he would be, and the immediate apology burns Neil’s tongue, wants to escape. 

Neil knows that he’s angry with what they’re doing, what how Neil has been letting Andrew treat him, as if Neil doesn’t need the same parameters that Andrew does, as if whatever happened to Andrew did not also happen to Neil. He knows that Andrew’s angry that Neil didn’t tell him before they started this, and he knows that it’s burning through him, eating away at the fragile thing that they’ve built here, the this, whatever this is. 

But, most of all, Neil knows that Andrew’s angry with Neil for leaving, for initiating it, for entering into the Nest ill-prepared and alone, the biggest fucking martyr of them all. 

Neil takes a drag off of his own cigarette before holding it out for Andrew to take. Andrew stares at it for a long time before he takes it, careful not to touch Neil’s fingers, always so careful not to touch without permission. He brings it to his mouth, fits his lips where Neil’s had been. 

“It’s okay,” Neil says, and Andrew looks over at him, the anger leeched off his face, taking all of his color with it. Neil looks at him and licks his lips, watches Andrew’s eyes follow his tongue. “It’s okay to kiss me.”

“Neil,” Andrew starts, and his voice is wrecked, far more emotional than Neil would ever have thought possible. 

“Yes or no?” Neil asks. 

“No,” Andrew says, and Neil smiles, nods once, reaches over for his cigarette and waits for Andrew to give it back to him. He takes one last drag before flicking it off the edge of the building, watching it sail down into the night. He leans over to see where it landed, but can’t quite make anything out beneath the tears. 

 

**III**

On the concrete floor of his father’s house, he wonders if Andrew will come to Nathanial’s funeral. There is blood in his eyes, on his lips, he can taste it al the way down his throat, the nausea climbing and climbing, the puckered and raw and aching skin, and he thinks Kevin will probably be the one to give his goddamn eulogy, and he starts to laugh, and it hurts, it hurts so fucking much, and Lola smiles above him and asks what’s so funny, her mouth frozen, her eyes lit with anger. 

He laughs because it’s easy, because he can, because Neil Josten was left in the parking lot of an Exy stadium, tucked inside his duffel bag with his phone and the keys to Andrew’s life, because there is nothing left of Nathanial, nothing left to greet him except his father and the long-awaited axe. He laughs and laughs and Lola pinches his mouth between her claws, his lips swollen and soft and ready to be cut open. 

She asks, “What’s so goddamn funny?”

And Nathanial looks up at her with bruised eyes, and says, his voice muffled by her hand, “Did you ever hear the one about the doctor who walks into a bar?”

He doesn’t even feel it when she starts to draw blood. 

***

On the ride home, Neil Josten keeps finding Andrew’s eyes on him every time he looks up. He whispers, “Staring,” and Andrew shrugs, unconcerned, unable to look away. Neil thinks about the bruises in the shape of fingers on Kevin’s throat, he thinks about the teary-eyed Foxes who stood in the motel room, relieved at his presence, ready to defend him if needed. He thinks about his father lying on the floor of what used to be his home, the blood and brain matter and un-seeing eyes. 

His wounds pulse in time with his heartbeat, and he can’t quite get used to the bandages on his face, his hands, and he picks at the edges of one until Andrew hovers his fingers over Neil’s, waits until Neil looks up and nods, allows him to press their hands together, Andrew’s skin warm on his, almost feverish. He looks out the window and says, low enough that nobody else hears, “Please promise me that Kevin will never be in charge of my eulogy when I die.”

And Andrew laughs, a short, sharp bark of laughter that draws everyone’s eyes. He says, “I promise,” and his voice is steady, unwavering, and Neil turns back to him and can’t help the smile that slides over his ruined mouth. 

 

**IV**

After Baltimore, Neil catches Allison exchanging hands with Matt, an innocent gesture that she plays up when she catches Neil looking at the twenties in her hand. She smiles her perfect smile and slides an arm around his shoulders, saying, “You ever want me to take you out for coffee again, let me know. I have six more bets on you, kid.”

Neil rolls his eyes and shakes his head slowly, forgets what it feels like to not have a family. 

***

After Baltimore, Wymack lets him watch tapes of that night’s game under the guise that he’ll learn something from watching the playback while he has to sit out practices. Neil knows that Wymack knows that everything from that night is blurry, including the game, especially the game, Neil’s lost time becoming more and more prevalent in the weeks after. 

He remembers the torture, Lola’s hands on him burning themselves into his nightmares, but everything prior to the start of the riot he can only remember in quick, painful glimpses. He was right, though, Andrew was amazing. 

He rewinds one of Andrew’s blocks enough times that Wymack says, rather gruffly, “You’re not getting paid to watch him sweat through his pads.”

Neil looks at him blankly for a moment, and then says, “I’m not getting paid at all, Coach.”

Wymack throws a pen at him. 

***

After Baltimore, Neil goes to take a shower and catches his father’s face in the mirror. It's only a glimpse, a quick one-two-punch of fear, because it’s only a flash of auburn hair and steel blue eyes and a lifetime of not remembering what he used to look like under the colored contacts and hair dye, and he freezes for an instant before remembering that his father is dead. He’s relieved, probably more than he should be, and he feels a laugh bubble up and out of his throat, and it feels strange to be an orphan, to have no blood ties this side of the Atlantic, to know that he can never talk to his parents ever again. 

It feels strange to be alone, considering how alone he’s felt for most of his life. 

He presses two fingers to the cracked, burned skin on his cheek, the ruins of a tattoo that meant belonging to something he never wanted to belong to. It doesn’t hurt, not really, not when most of his body is in pain, when nothing about him doesn’t ache, and he presses harder, thinks about how much of his father is still left in him, how much of Riko. 

“Stop.”

Neil doesn’t even have to turn to know it’s Andrew, he’s intimately familiar with every pitch and timbre of his voice, and his fingers move obediently, fall back down to his side. An automatic apology gets caught in his throat, he knows Andrew wouldn’t be able to hear it, that it would somehow be worse than the self pity, the self harm. 

He says, instead, “I’m always going to be a part of him.” 

He’s not sure who he means, which him, and Andrew doesn’t ask, just lifts his hand and hovers it over Neil’s shoulder, a clear question, and Neil nods his head, and watches in the mirror as Andrew’s fingers fit in the place between Neil’s shoulder and neck, warm where Neil’s skin is bare, Andrew’s thumb pressing against the ridge of Neil’s spine. His fingers cover old scars, new scars, cover skin that Neil is afraid to look at, afraid to remember. 

He says, “He’s going to want me back.”

And Andrew meets his eyes in the mirror and says, his breath ghosting across Neil’s cheek, making him shiver, “He can try.”

 

**V**

After Baltimore, after the game against Edgar Allen, Andrew takes Neil to Columbia. 

Neil traces the house key in his palm again and again and again on the ride to Eden’s Twilight, but only because his hands are restless, unoccupied, and only because the night presses against the car like a tangible object, humid, until Neil rolls the passenger window down, lets the sweltering breeze rumble through the car. Andrew doesn’t say anything, wouldn’t, doesn’t even look over at Neil to catalogue his expression underneath the orange glow of the streetlights, but Kevin does say something from the backseat, says, “Neil, shut the goddamn window,” and Andrew brakes hard enough in the left lane to almost cause two accidents, cars swerving around them while laying on their horns, Kevin jostled enough to hit his head against Neil’s headrest. 

Aaron says, loudly, “Jesus, Andrew,” and Andrew presses his foot on the gas again, and Kevin doesn’t say anything else until they’re at the club, excusing himself through the tight space of the dance floor to make a beeline for Roland and the tray of drinks that will be mostly consumed by him and him alone. 

Neil and Andrew go to collect the second round, Andrew boxing him in at the counter, almost touching, but never touching, and Roland winks at Neil, who blushes mightily and bites his lip to swallow a smile. Neil asks Roland for something alcoholic to drink and when Roland turns to make it, Neil looks at Andrew for his reaction, but Andrew only shrugs. Neil whispers, “Yes or no?” in the space between them, low enough that Andrew doesn’t have to hear him, just has to read his lips, and Andrew nods him head almost imperceptibly, and Neil reaches down to fit their hands together, Neil’s scars lining up perfectly with Andrew’s clean skin. 

Kevin drinks like a fish, and Nicky dances with a few boys who flirt with him unabashedly, and Aaron refuses to look at either Andrew or Neil, and Neil swallows shot after shot without feeling like he’s doing something he really shouldn’t. 

Andrew only has two drinks, doesn’t look even a little bit tipsy, and Neil stares at him long after Andrew tells him to stop, long after Andrew says, “I hate you,” for the fourth time, long after he’s at one hundred and ten percent. He watches Andrew and then he watches Nicky and Aaron dancing and then he watches Kevin pretending that everything is fine and then he watches the other people here, people who have no idea what Neil’s life is like, how close he came to dying, how close he came to running, who he was in a past life. 

He drinks and drinks and feels the alcohol course through him like a wave, and Andrew leans close enough so Neil can hear him over the reverberations of the music, and says, “I never figured you for a quiet drunk.”

And Neil turns to him and smiles, wants to lean forward and press against his mouth, but some part of him knows that that wouldn’t be okay, that Andrew wouldn’t want that, so he doesn’t. “I don’t think you’ve ever called me quiet,” he says, and his voice sounds dangerous, sounds low and vulgar, and he sees the flush of Andrew’s cheeks, and he leans even closer. “In fact, I remember lots of times when you kept telling me to shut up.”

Andrew closes his eyes and then opens them again, exasperated with his own arousal. “Neil,” he says, and Neil looks at him innocently, raising his eyebrows. 

“Yes, Andrew?” he says, leaning his arm on the table, watching Andrew’s eyes flicker down to the rise of his shirt, right where a strip of his stomach is exposed. 

Andrew sighs. “One hundred and eleven.”

***

When they get home that night, Andrew gets into bed first and Neil hesitates in the frame of the doorway, uncertain. He’s still drunk, wants nothing more than to fall asleep kissing Andrew, long, sloppy kisses that might turn into something else, something with Andrew’s hands on Neil’s chest, his belly, something with Andrew’s mouth on parts of him that he can’t ignore, but he knows that that would be pushing it. “I can sleep on the couch,” he says quietly, watches as Andrew takes off his shirt and dumps it on the floor. 

“Do you want to sleep on the couch?” Andrew asks without looking at him. 

Neil looks at the floor and then up again. The world is comfortably numb, slightly blurred, and he feels warmer than he has in a long time. “No,” he says, and it sounds like the word was scraped out of his throat. 

“Then don’t,” Andrew says, shrugging his bare shoulders. He lays down, turning away from Neil. 

“Okay.” Neil slides his pants off, then his shirt, feeling embarrassed in only his boxer briefs, despite the fact that Andrew has seen way more of his skin than this. He lifts up the covers and gets into bed, and Andrew turns toward him then, watching as Neil rearranges himself so that he is flat on his back with his head on the pillow and his eyes on the ceiling. His arms are at his sides on top of the blanket, but they twitch, wanting to move. 

“Don’t touch me,” Andrew says, not quite a growl, and Neil slides his gaze to Andrew and nods, acquiescing. He would be lying if he said he didn’t want to touch Andrew, but he knows their boundaries and he knows how to respect them, despite his own needs. 

Andrew had opened one of the windows, and a gust of wind blows over them, ruffling the sheets, and Neil feels strangely honest right now, more than Andrew would ever want to hear, and he almost can’t stop himself when he says, “He made me sleep in Kevin’s bed.”

Andrew’s eyes are sharp on him, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even have to ask who Neil’s talking about. He’s quick, he’s always been quick. 

“When he would,” Neil stops, starts again, “When he would share it with me, it never seemed to be big enough. He would always be touching me, his hands, his nails, his mouth. Jean would give me these pills to sleep, even though I would have to wake up every couple of hours, and I would take a few at a time and think that that wouldn’t be a bad way to die.” He swallows and swallows, and the words taste bitter on his tongue. “To just go to sleep and never wake up again.”

Andrew makes a noise that Neil can’t decipher, something low in his throat. Neil keeps his eyes on the ceiling. 

“I guess he had it better. He never even saw the bullet coming.” Neil passes a hand over his eyes, covering them, can feel the tip of one of his scars with the pads of his fingers, can remember different hands on him, one of the many. “I don’t think I can ever forgive him for that.”

Neil can feel one of Andrew’s palms hovering over his arm, the weight of it, the pull of him, but doesn’t say yes, doesn’t want to feel his touch and confuse it for Riko’s in the darkness of his closed eyes, doesn’t want to confuse it for Lola’s or his father’s, would never want that for Andrew, for himself. They have their boundaries for a reason. 

“Then don’t,” Andrew says again, his words heavy in the space between them. 

And he says it one more time, softly, almost a whisper, almost lost to the breeze that slides through the room, “Then don’t, Neil.”

 

**VI**

At the beginning of the school year, Betsy asks, “Why Andrew?”

It’s not a judgment, she of all people knows the scars that Andrew hides from the public, knows the sensitivities he pretends not to have, but Neil feels bristled anyway, always wants to shout when the other Foxes call him a monster. He stares blankly at her for a moment, doesn’t want her to have a piece of them, doesn’t want her to understand. 

She smiles demurely at him until he finally sighs out loud. 

He says, “He doesn’t handle me with kid gloves,” and it’s as direct as he gets around his teammates, around the faculty. Despite the years of not having one, he knows family when he sees it. 

She laughs, and it sounds light in the space between them. “Point taken.”

***

Andrew kisses Neil, and it’s rough, almost sharp, Andrew’s teeth and tongue and the way that Neil presses back against him with only his own mouth, never his fingers, never his hands, Andrew swallowing the taste of Neil and Neil letting him, his whole body humming with warmth. Andrew tells Neil to put his palms in Andrew’s hair, and Neil does, pulling hard enough that Andrew almost cries out, their swollen mouths pushing against each other, Andrew fitting his fingers into Neil’s shirt until he pushes up and off, Neil letting the cotton leave him with a shiver. Its too much, it’s not enough, Neil wanting more and more and more, and Andrew tells him to slow down, but his voice is barely audible, and Neil doesn’t want to, has never felt this sense of urgency, this sense of need, and he lets Andrew dip his fingers underneath Neil’s waistband, lets Andrew skim the skin of his belly with his nails, Neil hissing through his teeth. 

Andrew laughs against his mouth, and Neil bites down on his lip, not hard, and Andrew is level-headed enough to deftly unbutton Neil’s jeans, pull the zipper down, his fingers touching skin that is hot enough to burn. He says, a breath of air through his lips, “Yes or no?”

And Neil says, “Yes,” and again, “Yes,” his eyes closed, his fingers trembling in Andrew’s golden hair. Andrew slowly sinks to his knees and Neil leans back against the bedroom wall, and he’s thinking about how he’s glad that they locked the door before he really can’t think any longer with Andrew’s mouth over his belly button, leaving a wet stripe with his tongue. 

Neil says Andrew’s name, but it’s too loud, and Andrew reaches up to place his fist in Neil’s mouth, and Neil gladly accepts it, biting down, leaving teeth marks where smooth skin used to be, and it’s not long before Neil makes a noise in his throat that Andrew has heard before, and Neil comes with Andrew’s mouth still on him, his hands grasping at the wall behind him so he won’t touch Andrew, and Andrew swallows and looks up at him with these soft bedroom eyes, and Neil says, “Jesus Christ,” because he can’t fucking stand it. 

Andrew passes a hand over his face, his mouth, and says, “I really want you to touch me.”

And Neil says, “Where?”

And Andrew looks at him for a moment, looks away, looks back again as he slowly stands up, his fingers on his own jeans. He unbuttons them, pulls down the zipper, and says, “Here,” reaching for Neil’s hand. Neil lets Andrew guide him, place his fingers right at the edge of Andrew’s underwear, and then underneath, Neil reveling in the smooth expanse of Andrew’s skin. 

He’s already hard, aching, and Neil wraps a palm around him and Andrew makes a noise that Neil’s never heard before, but Andrew doesn’t say anything, doesn’t stop him, and Neil pushes against his mouth and Andrew cups Neil’s face between his hands, pulling him closer, Neil’s fingers slowly, slowly, inching up and down Andrew’s cock. Andrew feels wild, out of control, his breathing harsh against Neil, and Neil says something stupid, something that makes Andrew laugh, and this time Andrew’s the one to bite down on Neil’s bottom lip, and it doesn’t hurt, not really, even when Andrew draws blood.

Neil says Andrew’s name again, a whisper between them, and Andrew comes, shaking against him. There’s a beat where Neil doesn’t want to let go yet, where he can still feel Andrew’s erratic pulse under his fingers, but then Andrew is pulling away from him, extracting Neil’s arm from his pants, turning to walk a few steps away, and Neil thinks he’s fucked up, thinks he’s really fucked this up, because Andrew isn’t looking at him or telling him that this was okay, and Neil’s thoughts are stripped down, bare, pure fight or flight, and he reaches out a hand to Andrew’s shoulder but stops a few inches away, hovering over clothed skin, not willing to risk the parameters they’ve set, not willing to push the boundaries they need. 

He waits for Andrew to say the first word, waits with his hand in the air, ready to comfort him, and Andrew hangs his head and doesn’t apologize, would never apologize, but says, “Don’t touch me,” instead.

And Neil says, “Okay.” 

And Andrew turns around and glances at his hand hovering somewhere near Andrew’s neck, and Neil drops it immediately, wants nothing more than to tell Andrew that it’s alright, that it will be alright, but he’s not stupid, and he knows that - for Andrew - nothing will ever be alright again. Neil leans back against the wall, his eyes never leaving Andrew’s, and it’s a minute before Andrew moves closer, pressing his nose to Neil’s cheek, breathing in the faint scent of come and Neil’s aftershave, and Neil doesn’t touch him and Andrew doesn’t say thank you, but he does press his mouth against the corner of Neil’s hard enough to bruise, and Neil figures that’s just as good. 

I’m fine, Neil thinks. 

And, they’re fine. 

Andrew’s cologne is tickling Neil’s sinuses, Andrew’s mouth sharp against his, and Neil closes his eyes and sees nothing on the inside of his eyelids, doesn’t mistake Andrew’s touch for someone else’s, and it’s not the first time, and hopefully it won’t be the last, and Andrew makes a small noise between them, and Neil opens his eyes again and Andrew’s staring at him and Neil knows that he’s seeing him, seeing Neil, knows that Andrew knows that this is not as dangerous as he thinks, that this thing between them - this this - is something that they both want. Andrew pulls away, leaving Neil cold in the space behind, and Neil thinks, I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine. 

And Andrew says, “Stop looking at me like that,” and his voice betrays his harsh words, and Neil smiles at him and his swollen, fucked mouth and the mess of his hair, his clothes, Andrew’s eyes glaring into his like the thousand times before that he’s told Neil that he hates him, like the thousand times before that Neil has not believed him. 

And, no, Neil thinks, no, they’re not fine. 

But they will be.


End file.
